Mass hysteria!

Just sayin

Chirping
5 Years
Sep 9, 2014
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My goodness what a racket this morning!

We have new pullets, a couple have been laying a few weeks, and the rest should be ready to. We have one leghorn who lays white eggs, and the rest will all be laying brown ones. Been trying to figure out exactly who is laying, we've been averaging about three brown eggs a day.

We have
One Golden Laced Wyandotte, who has laid at least one.
One Barred Rock, who has laid at least one.
One Rhode Island Red - not sure
One Australorpe - not sure

I had thought they'd be different enough in color that I'd be able to learn whose is whose... but I'm not so sure now, all the brown eggs we''ve gotten are the exact same color.

But that's not my question, really... My question is about the amount of noise they make then it's EGG TIME! I expected a bit of chortling, but they get everyone cackling! The ones in the barn, the ones outside, the rooster runs around fretting all worried about everyone, and today it went on for over an hour!
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I went out to check on them a couple times, and good grief the racket.

Is this because they are new pullets, and these might be their first eggs? Or will it remain this big of a major drama every day? From an evolutionary standpoint, I'd think they'd want to be pretty quiet while laying, but instead they seem to be trying to call in every predator in the county.
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Those eggs are pretty much the same color.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the eggs song comes from when they were jungle fowl foraging when a hen decided she needed to go back and lay an egg. The rest of the flock would continue to forage so she wouldn't know where they were. In an effort to rejoin them, she'd call out, "Hey, where are you guys?"
The rest of the flock makes the same call in return, "Here we are".
They still do it even if they're in the same pen.
 
Those eggs are pretty much the same color.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the eggs song comes from when they were jungle fowl foraging when a hen decided she needed to go back and lay an egg. The rest of the flock would continue to forage so she wouldn't know where they were. In an effort to rejoin them, she'd call out, "Hey, where are you guys?"
The rest of the flock makes the same call in return, "Here we are".
They still do it even if they're in the same pen.
Thanks for the info, makes sense. Often wondered why several of mine sing the song in chorus when only one could have laid.
 
Welcome to the wonderful NOISY world of hens -- you'll find that your flock will enjoy multiple "sing alongs" a day - and that they take great pleasure in competing to see who can be the loudest.
 
Ha ha! Not only that, but some breeds are much more "talkative" than others. My RIR and Ameraucana hens really cackle at me when I come out to visit or feed them. My buff orphingtons talk too, just not so much. I have 7 pullets that I expect to start laying in Oct/November as I got them in early June. They can also be quite noisy when I go to feed and water them. I think they observed the grown hens doing it and thought they'd give it a try too!
 
I'm in the sticks so I'm not concerned about the noise per se... I'm just surprised by the amount of drama, and hoping they're not just calling in coyotes.

But today we got four eggs out of the six... so someone new has laid an egg. Perfect little brown eggs.
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Mine have been laying about a month now. They still sing, but it seems to have gotten a lot shorter in duration. Perhaps there's a lot less "practicing" going on, and it only happens when there's an actual egg.

Might work the same for you as yours get older.. Or not.. Who knows :)
 
My pullets hatched May 15th but I haven't gotten any eggs from them yet. I have heard one of my roosters making the egg song when no hen is near. Why did he do that?
 

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